Wedding favour plants

[rrrrrreatt]

My wedding’s in September and we want to give small plants/big seedlings as party favours. I’ve got a mould for making paper pots so I’m planning to make brown paper pots to keep them plastic free.

Can anyone recommend any suitable seeds I could use for this please? I’ll be sowing in July/August and would like something relative hardy so they don’t die within a few months.

This is only my second year of gardening, and I started from zero knowledge, so I’m still v much learning - the only plants I have on my list so far are violas and primroses!

I am not sure paper pots will last from July to sept but I am willing to admit I could be wrong. Do you want an annual or perennial and do you want it to be in flower in sept? And indoor or outdoor plant?

The other thing to think about is how will drunk people get them home intact?

I guess you could make them a little string handle or something but they'll be pretty hard for people to look after from dinner to going home time.

Biennials would be good timing-wise- guests can plant them out in September and they'll flower the following spring and summer.
Foxgloves, wallflowers, sweet rocket, sweet williams. All lovely and easy from seed. Wallflowers and sweet williams especially will probably go on for a few years.

Could you sow in modules (in June best) and then just put them in paper pots for the wedding itself? Water them well beforehand in the modules then move them into the paper pots when they've drained, a couple of days before the wedding. Don't water them in the paper. And put in a paper bag, the kind with a base that stand up and handles. I think that would work fine, although as others have said not for those who have a heavy night!

Lovely idea but I doubt they'll survive the journey home....

The paper pots will be a soggy mess once they’re watered and seedlings need regular watering. Give them a packet of seeds

My friend did little jade plants as favours, cutting root really quickly and they’re fairly sturdy so not too bad to transport home. If you got a decent sized jade now you could start doing cuttings - how many do you need?

That’s probably a good idea. That or seeds. But, OP, will you be upset if lots of your plants are abandoned or squished on your wedding day?

I don’t have a jade plant but I do have a lot of little aloe Vera babies so I could use them as long as they don’t get massive! I’ll look into biennials too - I could definitely sow my seeds in June and they sound like they’d work well.

I probably should have added that I planned to module sow them and transfer them into paper pots close to our wedding day. I’m also going to make seed bombs for guests that are too pissed or have a longer journey home and we’re going to place them by the exit for people to help themselves if they want to. I did consider seeds but then remembered the sachets I’ve forgotten and lost at other weddings.

There’s lots of growing projects near us, inc one at our venue and another I volunteer for by our house, so we can donate any surplus plants or bombs to them if we can’t fit them in our garden. Any squished ones can go my compost bin, I’d much rather compost lots of seedlings/small plants I’ve grown than have a big box of bubbles test tubes or sugared almonds to try and get rid of!

I’d like something that will continue growing for a while longer rather than be in flower in September but dead shortly after. Ideally outdoor plants as I have a garden and two mini greenhouses but limited indoor plant space (aka two cats that like to swipe any plant they can reach).

We had small potted herb plants on our table as decorations and said to guests during the speeches they were welcome to take them home, they all went! I still have a rosemary plant in the garden that was on the table at my wedding. We had small ceramic pots though, I agree paper might not last.

How about growing lots of succulents from succulent leaves? Everyone loves a succulent (fact) and they’re easy to look after.

I like the idea of a tree seedling or a shrub from a cutting? Small trees and shrubs do really well if you plant them out somewhere when they are little and will probably survive with total negligence if they are planted outside soon after the wedding. Shrubs might be a bit more friendly for guests who don't have big gardens although I love the idea of a virtual wedding forest which grows over the life of your marriage, very romantic.

What about an air plant like tillandsia? I was given one at an ESG event and have enjoyed watching it on my windowsill. Hard to kill.

Great seed place here. Very reasonable postage too. No waste as the cheaper ones just come in the foil insert without the printed envelope.

They also do celebration seed packets.
https://budgetseeds.co.uk

I am an ex horticulture teacher who has taught paper pot making for years, and who used to use them to teach people how to transplant seedlings, and my main point would be that making paper pots stand up long enough to get them home was one of my major headaches and I would also make my students make a paper tray to catch all the compost that would spill out of the pots.

I recommend making a few yourself and then transporting them round for the day to see how easy it is before you proceed! Mine were square origami pots that at least had flat bottoms. If you are using that mould where you roll up paper and press a bottom into it, they fall over all the time. We used to have those at work and the volunteers would use them but I rarely used it as they would just not stand up.

If you are going to do this, my recommendation is to take succulent or herb cuttings now, and use modules which are the same diameter as the pots you plan to make. In the hope that the rootball has grown enough to hold together, and then just slip the plant in, without any additional compost. I'd probably do mint, oregano and lemon balm as all 3 are quick growers root wise.

Or, sow your seeds or take cuttings into those jiffy pellet pucks, and again, when ready, put the whole puck into the pot.

Then the instructions would be to just plant the whole thing when they get home, and the lack of compost will sort out the spillage issue.

Home Bargains are doing those biodegradable cardboard pots at the moment- £1.50 for 60! So that'd save a lot of the paper pot headaches above...